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DSG Honors the Legacy of Dr. Benjamin Hooks
Image courtesy of © CHF
The AP just reported the death of Dr. Benjamin Hooks, founder of The Children's Health Forum, and former executive director of the NAACP. He died early Thursday morning at his home in Tennessee at the age of 85, following a long illness.
Dr. Hooks served in the Army during World War II and used the GI bill to attend DePaul University in Chicago when no law school in the South would admit him. He went on to serve as the first black judge since Reconstruction anywhere in the South on the Tennessee Criminal Court in 1965 and served as the first black FCC commissioner in 1972. In 1977, Hooks became the director of a 200,000-member NAACP facing a $1 million deficit; by the time he left it in 1992, the NAACP was debt free and its membership had grown by several hudred thousand.
For more on Dr. Hooks' remarkable life, please see: Benjamin Hooks Dies; Led N.A.A.C.P.
Dr. Hooks receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2007:
